Two minutes in: You can do this, Ryan. Sure, a three-hour film version of a Broadway musical is a dry way to waterboard you, but people say Les Misérables is the best adaptation yet. Maybe this is the one that finally changes your mind.

Five minutes in: No. No, It isn’t. This is hell. This is my personal hell.

Given that France is America’s go-to national punching bag for milquetoast xenophobic jokes, it is a testimony to her towering talent that Marion Cotillard is an Oscar-winning box office draw. Even reducing her physical presence by a third in her latest, Rust and Bone, does nothing to stunt her on-screen magnetism, or what the French call “Le, daaaamn!”

Listen, 2013, you look cool. You really do, with your new Superman movie and lack of Twilight. It’s just…well, your older sibling (2012) was super crazy awesome. It’s not easy being odd, especially with a number so feared it gets its own phobia named after it. But chin up, I’m sure it won’t be that bad…I mean, other than that sequel to Adam Sandler’s Grown Ups that’s coming. Here are some things I’m looking...

Oh, Quentin Tarantino, you’ve really done it this time, haven’t you? Nobody really cared when you fantasized that Hitler didn’t end his reign of terror with one last murder (his own), placing therapeutic cinematic release into the hands of machine-gun toting Jews blasting the bogeyman back to hell in Inglourious Basterds. But slavery? This ain’t Europe, QT; here in America, we like to judge everyone abroad for...